KUNA, Idaho (CBS2) — On Tuesday, the City of Kuna announced that it would be canceling its rodeo after receiving a barrage of angry emails, social media posts, and death threats.
This came after the city announced that it would host a separate rodeo from the Crooked 8 event and concert venue.
Crooked 8 owner Lini Chytka said this announcement was a surprise.
"It felt like a sucker punch," said Chytka.
Last year Crooked 8 hosted the first Kuna rodeo in decades. Chytka said she and her family invested a lot of time in money in making it happen.
"Cody and I have probably invested between $200,000 and $220,000 of our own money to build it. All from the dirt work, to the bucking shoots, to the back pins, to the crow's nest. All the things that people don't think about, and we did that in hopes of this being a continued relationship with the city," Chytka said.
After hearing the news, Crooked 8 decided to form its own rodeo.
"We decided to start our own non-profit rodeo to make sure that it would be successful for the whole community, and that's how the Kuna Stampede was born," Chytka said.
CBS2 spoke with Kuna Mayor Joe Stear, who said he talked with Crooked 8 about using its venue again.
"We had given them a bid sheet and were hoping they would give us a bid because there really wasn't anything available. When they didn't bid on it, we assumed they didn't want to, so we started looking at other options," Stear said.
But Chytka said a month after having that conversation with the mayor, the clerk told the ICA they would no longer use their venue and were purchasing their own arena.
While plans resumed for the city rodeo, the mayor said he and his council were left in the dark about the situation.
"We have a rodeo committee that actually was working on the logistics on when and how to have a rodeo, so I didn't know there was a conflict there until after the post came out," he said.
The mayor said the city didn't have a venue or set plans for this year's rodeo.
"It was a little premature to post that we were actually going to have a rodeo yet because we hadn't confirmed funding or anything like that, so it hadn't come before myself or council to approve funding," Stear said.
Mayor Stear said that the city will be fully supporting the Kuna Stampede this year and will look at the possibility of future rodeos with Crooked 8.
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